"Though he stands leaning on his cane on the porch of the hotel in Port William, looking out into the first cool morning of September, 1952, he is not there. He is four miles and sixty-four years away, in the time when he had music in him and he was light." (7)

"Lightning will not take the hog. Mat knows that. Then why did he ask? Because it is right? To walk the second mile? Maybe. But maybe, too, for some perverse fascination in seeing the man so steadfastly prove himself a fool." (13)

"The few mornings when he returned to find that something in fact had gone wrong, he knew the anger of regret for which he could find not fitting act. Though he did not know it then, it was an emotion that would be one of the powerful themes of his life." (31)